Ancient World Review

Pope Cracks Down On Traditional Latin Mass

The priest here is being as diplomatic as possible. See next video for a different opinion.

"Pope Francis cracked down Friday on the spread of the old Latin Mass, reversing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s signature decisions in a major challenge to traditionalist Catholics who immediately decried it as an attack on them and the ancient liturgy." Source: AP.

"Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass that Benedict relaxed in 2007, and went further to limit its use. The pontiff said he was taking action because Benedict’s reform had become a source of division in the church and been exploited by Catholics opposed to the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the church and its liturgy."

Comment: This is clearly an attack on conservative traditionalism by the forces of liberal modernism that took over the Catholic church after the disastrous reforms of the Second Vatican Council. There's a lot that could be said about the results of those reforms and their role in things like the recent church scandals, but I can't write about that stuff openly in the current climate.

It will be interesting to see what will come out of all of this. If the pope is worried about the divisions caused by Benedict's relaxation of the restrictions on the Latin Mass, he should be even more worried about the divisions caused by his re-imposition of those restrictions. A lot of Catholics feel very strongly about the "trad mass" despite the moderation of their public statements. Some traditional parishes, I expect, will simply ignore these new directives and if the pope decides to crack down on their bishops and congregations as a result I could see this leading to a serious schism.

The next report came out shortly before the formal announcement from the Vatican. The bishop here, Athanasius Schneider, is a "Kazakh Roman Catholic bishop, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. He is a member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra. He is known for championing the pre-Vatican II liturgical traditions and practices of the church and for protesting certain policies, including some associated with Pope Francis." (Wikipedia)

Bishop Schneider isn't alone in his belief that the ban on the traditional mass is an abuse of power. It's quite possible that many Catholic churches could end up associating themselves with the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) affiliated orders and continue to practice the Latin rites in defiance of Rome. Whether this will lead to a full-blown schism remains to be seen, but considering the situation in the Vatican right now I think that would be a positive development.

I could be wrong about a lot of this, however. I don't pretend to understand all the internal politics of the Catholic church. Some observers, for instance, believe that the existence of the SSPX orders shows that a schism has already occurred. The next video includes a detailed discussion of the history of the dispute from an Orthodox Christian perspective.

The Malleus Maleficarum

"The Malleus Maleficarum (Latin for 'The Hammer of Witches', or 'Hexenhammer' in German) is one of the most famous medieval treatises on witches. It was written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, and was first published in Germany in 1487. Its main purpose was to challenge all arguments against the existence of witchcraft and to instruct magistrates on how to identify, interrogate and convict witches." Source: The Malleus Maleficarum.

"Some modern scholars believe that Jacob Sprenger contributed little if anything to the work besides his name, but the evidence to support this is weak. Both men were members of the Dominican Order and Inquisitors for the Catholic Church. They submitted the Malleus Maleficarum to the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Theology on May 9, 1487, seeking its endorsement."

According to some sources I've seen, the Malleus Maleficarum was banned by the church, but apparently this wasn't the case:

"While general consensus is that The Catholic Church banned the book in 1490 by placing it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum ('List of Prohibited Books'), the first Index was, in fact, produced in 1559 under the direction of Pope Paul IV. Therefore such claims are dubious, at best." (Ibid)

According to Wikipedia, "The Malleus recommended not only torture but also deception in order to obtain confessions: 'And when the implements of torture have been prepared, the judge, both in person and through other good men zealous in the faith, tries to persuade the prisoner to confess the truth freely; but, if he will not confess, he bid attendants make the prisoner fast to the strappado [see note below] or some other implement of torture. The attendants obey forthwith, yet with feigned agitation. Then, at the prayer of some of those present, the prisoner is loosed again and is taken aside and once more persuaded to confess, being led to believe that he will in that case not be put to death."

Note: Weirdly enough, the strappado (modified to prevent dislocations) has become a popular form of sexual bondage. There are lots of videos of the practice out there in case you're interested.

Comment: The Malleus Maleficarum has been called one of the most evil books of all time, but I'd love to have a copy of one of the early editions. These old books are beautiful and they're worth a fair amount of money.

Video from Jan. 2020.

The Malleus Maleficarum is obsolete, of course. These days we don't need a manual on how to identify witches, force them to confess and then execute them because modern witches freely confess their blasphemies on the internet and most of them aren't worth hanging. Not for witchcraft, anyway. I can think of other reasons to string them up, however.

Evangelical Churches Growing While Catholicism Declines In France

Video from 2018.

"... France boasts a glorious and splendid Catholic legacy -- from the iconic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris to its status as one of the first countries to adopt Catholicism as its official religion. In fact, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the year 800, France’s history became inseparable from that of the Catholic Church." Source: International Business Times (2013).

Related: Charlemagne: A New Emperor for Christendom.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of Catholicism in French history. "Established in the 2nd century in unbroken communion with the bishop of Rome, [the country] is sometimes called the 'eldest daughter of the church.'" (Wikipedia) The church has been in decline for years, however. At one time the vast majority of the French population were Catholics, but that's not the case anymore. According to the IBT, only about 1 in 20 people regularly attended mass in France (back in 2013), a major demographic collapse.

The church isn't just losing people; it's shrinking physically.  The Catholic News Agency reported this year that "one religious building is disappearing in France every two weeks." Some of these churches are being demolished or converted to mosques. Others collapsed, presumably from old age or neglect, while others burned down (it turns out that "two-thirds of fires in religious buildings are due to arson"). And some churches have simply been abandoned. The next video (2019), for instance, shows an abandoned church somewhere in France.

It looks like someone has been taking care of this church to some extent.

Catholicism is in decline, but evangelical churches are spreading rapidly in France. According to Evangelical Focus (2021), "Historian expert in Protestantism Sébastian Fath has issued the new data as of 2021 which confirm the shift of Protestant Christianity in France. In the decade of the 1960s, only one in ten Protestants identified as evangelical Christians. Now, more than half of Protestants attend a free evangelical church."

Report from 2019.

Protestantism has been in decline across Europe for some time now, but the situation seems to be different in France for some reason. According to Wikipedia, "a new Evangelical church is built every 10 days and now counts 700,000 followers across France." Protestants still only make up around three per cent of the French population, however. The bigger story here is the collapse of Christianity and religious belief in general in the West.

Related: Christianity is becoming a third-world religion.

The Decline Of Catholicism In Ireland

Report from Feb., 2020.

"Christianity, specifically Catholicism, remains the dominant religion in the Republic of Ireland. In the 2016 census, 85.1% of the population identified as Christian. However recent social changes ...  have solidified the growth of liberal thinking in Ireland, particularly within the younger community. An Irish priest, Fr. Kevin Hegarty ... reported that there is only one priest under the age of 40 in the entire diocese of Killala; only two priests have been ordained over the last 17 years, and there have been no candidates for the priesthood since 2013 ... A continued requirement for children entering Irish Catholic owned schools to be baptized keeps the overall level of baptisms high, though the number of individuals practicing a faith or attending church is at an all-time low and rapidly decreasing." (Wikipedia)

Video from 2016.

Comment: If you ask me, the dramatic decline in religious belief which has been occurring in Ireland is more apparent than real. In a country where being a Catholic and being Irish were considered to be one and the same thing, where 90 percent of the population went to church every week, most people probably called themselves Catholics just to fit in with their community. In other words, they were Catholics because it was traditional to be a Catholic and their faith never went much deeper than that. Once the social pressure to conform let up, they simply dropped out altogether.

There are a lot of factors involved in the decline of Catholicism -- the aging out of congregations, church scandals, the spread of secularism, the liberalization of church doctrine, etc. etc. -- but I would also argue that Ireland was never all that religious in the first place. Being a Catholic and being "religious" in the sense that you actually believe in Christianity and church dogma are two completely different things. The sex-abuse scandals and their subsequent coverup turned people against the church, obviously, but the picture is more complex than that. One way or another, what we are seeing now is a kind of shake-out process where the true state of the Catholic faith is being revealed.

Whatever the reason, a lot of people in Ireland stopped going to church altogether. That's one trend. The faithful remnant -- the true believers, so to speak -- have also been turning to more "vibrant" evangelical-style denominations which feature lots of singing and swaying and musical stage performances that make their services seem more like tent-revivals than anything else. When it comes to the Catholic church in particular and Christianity in general, the current situation is best summed up in a 1994 book called The Dark Side: Thoughts on the Futility of Life from the Ancient Greeks to the Present:

"Philosophy has argued itself out of existence. Theologies? Devotees either adopt a defiant fundamentalism or abandon the spiritual life altogether."

The Witch Marks Of Creswell Crags

Video from 2020.

"Mysterious 'witch marks' that were carved into a cavern's walls centuries ago [16th - 19th centuries] to ward off evil are getting a public viewing, thanks to 3D modeling and animation." Source: Live Science (2020).

"The marks were discovered earlier this year [2020] in Creswell Crags, an enclosed limestone gorge in the United Kingdom that houses a cave used by humans during the Ice Age, Creswell Crags Museum & Heritage Centre representatives said in a statement. But humans were also using the cave during the medieval period, covering its walls and ceilings with so-called witch marks as a form of protection against evil spirits and witches."

"The number and variety of witch mark designs is unprecedented. Among the most common found are the double VV engravings which are believed to make reference to Mary, Virgin of Virgins and similarly PM is Pace Maria. Others are believed to be devices for capturing or trapping ‘evil’ and these include diagonal lines, boxes and mazes. The marks appear to have been added to over time and may indicate a need to strengthen the protection in response to a period of unexpected sickness, death or poor crops." Source: Creswell Crags.

Skeleton Of Possible "Witch Girl" Discovered In Italy (2016?)

"An archaeological dig in northern Italy has unearthed the remains of a 13-year-old-girl buried facedown -- evidence, archaeologists say, that despite her young age, she was rejected by her community and seen as a danger even when dead." Source: Live Science (2016?).

"Dubbed by Italian media as 'the witch girl,' the skeleton was unearthed at the complex of San Calocero in Albenga on the Ligurian Riviera, by a team of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology at the Vatican.

"The site, a burial ground on which a martyr church dedicated to San Calocero was built around the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., was completely abandoned in 1593."

Note: At the time this article appeared, the burial was thought to date back to Late Antiquity or the early Medieval period. It's possible that this girl frightened the community because she suffered from some kind of illness that caused paleness, fainting and hematomas. "Intriguingly, her disrespectful burial was found in a privileged area, just in front of the church," which makes the find even more unusual.

The Education Of Julian The Apostate

Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus (331 - 363 AD) was a great man and one of the last true Romans. He is more commonly known today as Julian the Apostate, the name he was given by the Christian church for his determined attempt to restore paganism in the dying Roman empire.

Born in Constantinople in 331, Julian was "placed in the care of an Arian bishop" as a child and "from 342 was confined for six years on an imperial estate in Cappadocia," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). "He impressed his Christian tutors there as a gifted and pious pupil, but his reading of the Greek classics was inclining him in private to other gods."

Christians who read and think too much tend to lose their faith, even if they're "heretics" like the Arians. "In 351, as a student of philosophy, [Julian] encountered pagan Neoplatonists and was initiated as a theurgist by Maximus of Ephesus," a Neoplatonist philosopher and magician who should be commemorated by pagans everywhere for the role he played in converting Julian to the traditional beliefs of the ancients.

Julian played a double game for years while waiting to see if he would be executed or made emperor. "For the next ten years Julian's pagan 'conversion' remained a prudently kept secret," according to the OCD. "He continued his studies in Asia and later at Athens until summoned to Milan by [Constantius II] to be married to the emperor's sister Helena and proclaimed Caesar with charge over Gaul and Britain."

Julian fought successful campaigns against the Alamanni and Franks that made him very popular with the army, which mutinied and declared him emperor after Constantius "ordered the transfer of choice detachments to the east..." (OCD). Luckily, civil war was avoided when Constantius died later that same year (361) and Julian took over Rome.

He publicly declared his paganism, purged the imperial court, issued a declaration of general religious tolerance that "foreshadowed a vigorous program of pagan activism in the interest of Hellenism," restored "the temples and finances of the ancestral cults," and established "a hierarchy of provincial and civic priesthoods." During the process, "Christian churches and clergy lost the financial subsidies and privileges gained under Constantine and his successors."

Julian discriminated in favor of pagans, but, unlike the Christians themselves, he didn't believe in using violence to persecute the people who didn't share his beliefs. Instead, he tried to marginalize Christianity, partly through argument, such as in his essay Against the Galileans, which is still well worth reading.

Julian's "learning and literary talent" as well as his control of the Roman legal apparatus could have changed the future course of the world in dramatic ways, but he was killed in a "minor skirmish" in his war against Persia after only three years in power. Wounded on June 26, 363, he died three days later on June 29, a  day which should also be commemorated by pagans.

By the time of Julian, Rome was already in serious trouble and the western empire would collapse around a hundred years later. Ultimately, Julian was fighting a rearguard action against Christianity, but his reforms might have made a difference if he had lived longer. After all, Christianity owed much of its influence to official support and a lot of important people converted in order to gain the favor of the court. Once that support had been removed, who knows what might have happened?

The real Rome was a pagan, not a Christian, empire. In Julian's day, the empire was being destabilized and distorted beyond recognition by a foreign religion and Julian might have been able to turn that around. 

"One of the persistent themes of Julian's antagonism towards the Christian church was his belief that they were troublemakers, causing political discord in any community where they formed the majority: 'they turn everything upside down.'" -- from the introduction to "Julian's Against the Galileans," edited and translated by R. Joseph Hoffmann, Prometheus Books, 2004. This feeling that an alien ideology is turning everything upside down is all too familiar today.

Here's to Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus. Rest in peace.

The Battle On The Ice 1242 AD (Updated)

Subject starts at app 0:40.

"The Battle on the Ice ... was fought between the Republic of Novgorod led by prince Alexander Nevsky and the forces of Livonian Order and Bishopric of Dorpat led by bishop Hermann of Dorpat on April 5, 1242, at Lake Peipus [see next video]. The battle is notable for having been fought largely on the frozen lake, and this gave the battle its name." Source: Wikipedia.

"The battle was a significant defeat sustained by the crusaders during the Northern Crusades, which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land. The Crusaders' defeat in the battle marked the end of their campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Slavic territories for the next century."

It's easy to forget that the Crusades weren't just fought against Muslims in the so-called Holy Land, but also against pagans and other Christians in Europe. Technically, a crusade was any church-sanctioned campaign and military/religious orders, i.e., organized gangs, like the Teutonic Knights were used to forcibly convert or slaughter unbelievers and suppress rivals to Rome's hegemony. And these "holy warriors" went rogue sometimes, operating like bandits or mercenaries in the pursuit of their own interests when they weren't massacring Jews and Saracens or attacking Christian kingdoms.

This is how "orthodox" Christianity took over the West. The Eastern Orthodox Church managed to stand up to the onslaught, however. It is now the second largest Christian denomination in the world, due in large part to its military victories over Catholic forces:

"The legacy of the battle, and its decisiveness, came because it halted the eastward expansion of the Teutonic Order [1] and established a permanent border line through the Narva River and Lake Peipus dividing Eastern Orthodoxy from Western Catholicism. The knights' defeat at the hands of [Alexander Nevsky's] forces prevented the crusaders from retaking Pskov, the linchpin of their eastern crusade. The Novgorodians succeeded in defending Russian territory, and the crusaders never mounted another serious challenge eastward. Alexander was canonised as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1574." (Wikipedia)

[1] "Throughout the 13th and 14th century CE the Catholic Teutonic knights crusaded in Prussia and the Baltic area mainly against pagan Lithuanians and Orthodox Russians, but as the order was bent on expansion for its own sake, many other nationalities were fought besides those." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

From the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky directed by Eisenstein. Music by Prokofiev. Full movie can be found here.

Despite the fact that he agreed to pay tribute to the Golden Horde, Alexander Nevsky is a legendary figure in Russia, a major national hero. Churches and cathedrals have been named after him. "On 24 September 2008, St. Alexander Nevsky was declared the main hero of Russia's history by popular vote ... In December 2008, he was voted the greatest Russian in the Name of Russia television poll." (Wikipedia)

"Hail and take heed, this is the tale one of the most famous Russian Heroes in history, second only to perhaps Vladimir of Kiev, the Baptizer of All Rus’. Few leaders have captured the hearts and minds of the Russians like Alexander Nevsky, who was voted Russia’s greatest leader of all time in 2008." Source: Russia Insider (2018).

The Holy Island Of Lindisfarne

Video from 2013.

"The Holy Island of Lindisfarne, also known simply as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important centre of Celtic Christianity under Saints Aidan of Lindisfarne, Cuthbert, Eadfrith of Lindisfarne and Eadberht of Lindisfarne. After the Viking invasions and the Norman conquest of England, a priory was reestablished. A small castle was built on the island in 1550." (Wikipedia)

"The ruined church and monastic buildings that still stand on the island today are not Anglo-Saxon; they are the remains of the new priory built on the island in the late 11th century by the monks of Durham. So where is the original monastery? And what happened to it after the attack?" Source: DigVentures.

"All that is known to survive are some carved stone monuments of Anglo-Saxon date, which were found by archaeologists clearing away some of the collapsed rubble from the priory ruins in the late 19th and early 20th century."

Good times at Lindisfarne, 793 AD. From Vikings, Season 1.

Note: "... a major ... geophysical survey funded by National Geographic was carried out by Durham University in September 2012. This has shown that there is limited archaeological evidence for the monastic boundary that had previously been postulated, but an alternative boundary has been identified, which is associated with an area of possible industrial activity. It also identified a probably infirmary cloister associated with the later priory and a possible structure aligned on the two standing churches." Source: Durham University.

The Medieval Cult Of Relics

Part two here. Part three here.

During the medieval period, the trade in holy relics was a lucrative and widespread racket operated by the Catholic church:

"Throughout the Middle Ages, Europe hosted a thriving trade in holy relics. But many of the relics, if not all of them, were fake." Source: The Museum of Hoaxes.

"The relics collected and worshiped by medieval Europeans ranged from the mundane to the truly bizarre. Bones or body parts of saints and martyrs were always in high demand. One church proudly displayed the brain of St. Peter until the relic was accidentally moved and revealed to be a piece of pumice stone."

Christians didn't invent the worship of relics, however. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), "the practice goes back at least to the Geometric period [in Greece 900-700 BC], persisted through antiquity, and has survived within the Catholic and Orthodox churches."

Relics in ancient Greece were commonly associated with hero cults and they were certainly just as fraudulent as the medieval Christian variety. According to the OCD, "there are numerous examples of relics, which fall into three main categories: first, those put into a certain place on purpose and subsequently worshiped there; second, those brought from one place to another for worship at the latter; third, those found by chance, given an identity, and venerated."

The relics of heroes and saints were thought to be "imbued with the power to benefit their possessor." (OCD) According to A History of the Middle Ages, 300-1500, by John M. Riddle, "the [medieval] age was devoted to the cults of the saints, wherein 'numinous' power was believed to be acquired by veneration of a specific saint, mainly by touching or kissing the saint's physical relic." (p 238)

This is clear evidence that medieval Christians believed in magic and practiced a form of polytheism with the saints as a kind of pantheon of minor deities or demigods. This veneration of relics still continues today in many parts of the world, especially among Catholics, and there's no doubt that every one of these relics is a fake. Next video is a news report from 2015.

Relics were valuable in the medieval world because they attracted patronage and pilgrims, a form of tourism that could greatly increase the wealth of parishes and monasteries. Some monks enjoyed the favor of the rich and weren't above fleecing their own flocks:

"...they bilked the villagers, selling them relics of inspired imagination," according to A Distant Mirror: The Calmitous 14th Century, by Barbara W. Tuchman (p.32). For instance, one friar "sold a piece of the bush from which the Lord spoke to Moses [and] some sold drafts of the Treasury of Merit supposed to be stored in Heaven by the Order of St. Francis," which is still involved in the relic trade.

According to Nature (2007), "four Franciscan churches in central Italy claim that they each hold a habit of St Francis of Assisi, the friar who founded the Franciscan order in the early 1200s ... Every year more than three million visitors come to the major shrine of St Francis, a basilica in Assisi that hosts famous frescoes depicting the saint's life, and one of the habits said to have belonged to the saint." [Emphasis added]

When it comes to relics, the Catholic church hasn't changed much over the centuries.

I have to wonder how anyone knows that this or that piece of cloth was part of St. Francis's habit or that the bones of St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Theologian are actually their real bones. Did St. Francis have a name tag on his habit? I'm not sure what happened to St. Gregory's body, but in the case of St. John Chryostom, his remains were scattered all over the Christian world in the years following his death. His skull apparently ended up in the hands of the Russian Orthodox Church -- it's apparently still on display at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. At least, they have a skull there. Who knows who it really belonged to?

"Today, the monastery at Vatopedi posits a rival claim to possessing the skull of John Chrysostom," according to Wikipedia, "and there a skull is venerated by pilgrims to the monastery as that of St John. Two sites in Italy also claim to have the saint's skull: the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and the Dal Pozzo chapel in Pisa. The right hand of St. John is preserved on Mount Athos, and numerous smaller relics are scattered throughout the world."

Unless St. John had four heads, at least three of these skulls have to be fakes. Most likely, they all are. Wouldn't it be hilarious if all these various body parts turned out to have belonged to common peasants, criminals or, better yet, notorious heretics? Some of the smaller fragments may even be animal bones for all we know, bones that now play an important role in the religious tourist trade that specializes in conning the superstitious rabble.